There's a lot of conjecture out there about the warming climate, but the shifting landscape of Te Waipounamu's (South Island) glaciers don't lie.
Since 2008 the Franz Josef Glacier has been retreating fast, and has lost a total of 1.56km in length, one of the fastest-retreating glaciers in the world.
A French study found that glaciers in New Zealand shrunk on average 1.5m a year from 2015-2019. That's seven times more than the four years prior.
Ours are far from alone, as glaciers around the world also melt at record speeds.
'Flashback Friday' is a weekly video series on 1News.co.nz, exploring TVNZ's vast archive of news content spanning decades.
Footage from this story was first broadcast on Pictorial Parade, which showed in cinemas each week from 1952 and 1971, courtesy of the National Film Unit. Other footage was filmed by 1News.
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